


Let's Get Wrecked on Poptarts and Sex

by queenklu



Category: Real Person Fiction, Supernatural RPF
Genre: Fanfiction, First Time, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-09-30
Updated: 2010-09-30
Packaged: 2017-10-12 07:44:01
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 14,589
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/122550
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/queenklu/pseuds/queenklu
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Chad discovers fanfiction. Jared discovers Jensen. Who saw this coming besides the fangirls?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Let's Get Wrecked on Poptarts and Sex

**Author's Note:**

> Here is the [](http://queenklu.livejournal.com/73391.html>soundtrack</a>.</p><p>And here's a list of <a href=)mentioned fics!

 

"Have you been living in my pocket?"

Jared has been up for three hours and two cups of coffee. Clearly, he is not awake enough for this conversation.

"No..." he offers after the minute it takes him to properly swallow the orange juice headed for his sinuses, channeling Steve Zahn, "I think someone woulda told me."

" _I  _think you would've noticed being so close to my dick."

And there it goes, out his nostrils and all over this morning's paper.

With Jensen laughing to the sound of Jared hacking up a lung, it strikes him now how weird it is that Jensen isn't here. Then he starts thinking how weird it is that he thinks it's weird because, honestly, he shouldn't be missing someone he sees every day, and Jensen should be enjoying their time apart instead of calling him.

And then he remembers why Jensen isn't here, why on their first free weekend in three weeks Jensen got called in for voice-overs on some Dean-centric audio stuff that got damaged, and knows from experience that Jensen + boredom = heavy roaming charges. 

"I hate you."

"Not according to the internets." 

Jared pinches the bridge of his stinging nose and bites back a groan. "Are you reading fan fiction again?"   
 

Once upon a time, neither one of them went near the stuff. Jared had put up with a lot of shit during Gilmore Girls, enough to know to stay away from the chat rooms and websites “dedicated” to his shows, and he suspects Jensen learned that at an even earlier age—what with his Dad The Actor and those unfortunate cowboy hat pictures.

 

He’d still heard about it, thanks to Chad, who, to the detriment of Jared’s email provider, regularly fills his inbox with the weirdest, most ridiculous drug-induced 'Jay-squared' fics, CC: j.acklantern@gmail.com. (According to Jensen, his sister made it for him when he first switched to acting—probably from something like brickpants@jailbait.net—and he never had the heart to change it. Which is utter bull. Jared knows Jensen’s just lazy.)

 

In any case, these stories are the literary equivalent of Mike Rosenbaum’s crack babies—or at least, those of Mike’s fic persona. You know, the ones where Jared is a marine biologist and Jensen is a pro-wrestler, and one day when their paths happen to cross...

"We sweat and we die, baby," Jensen shoots back absently, like he's in the middle of reading one right now.

"Yeah, well." Jared fumbles, hoping Jensen can't actually hear him blush, like some fans seem to think he can. "I miss your musk." 

Jensen snorts, unimpressed. "You aren't even reading the new stuff, are you." 

"Uh, no," he lies, "and it's kind of freaking me out that you are."

"Yeah, well you just blew me next to the long-lost wreckage of a civil war iron-clad stranded in the middle of Africa with warlords closing in. I’m feeling rather good about myself.”   
 

Jared sighs and settles into the couch. “ _Sahara_? Seriously?”

 

“Penelope Cruz is totally irrelevant in that movie anyway.”

  
~*~

The fan girls (and some boys, he supposes) have it wrong.

Well, alright, some of the stuff is fairly accurate, if you squint through the miasma of Jensen's childhood diabetes and Jared's daddy issues brought on by being raised by pygmies. Like the way they've managed to see through the front Jensen puts up at cons, because he's shy, not an asshole, and also because he's convinced if he doesn't stay closed off he'll be eaten alive. But as far as Jared's concerned? He is _nothing_ like this caricature they've created for him, this pre-teen girl in a line-backer's body called 'Padapuppy.'

He has no idea how they can see through Jensen's facade, but take Jared's at face value and then some. He's torn through all his Supernatural behind the scenes stuff, the con videos, and yeah he's joking and smiling and goofing off, but that's all nerves. If he was as 'On' as the Padapuppy he'd shoot himself. Hell, Jensen would load the gun.

 

That just isn’t how they work.

 

Jared tried explaining it to Chris once, the first time they took him and Steve out for a night on the town and wound up spectacularly drunk in the middle of Buttfuck, Canada, Jensen across the bar with Stevegetting his ass royally kicked in darts while Jared and Chris chased shots around their table. “It's like...we’re both sitting on opposite ends of the scale,” he’d slurred, shoulder blades itching, “and somewhere in the middle is this, like…a decent human being. Or two decent human beings. Whatever, I had the same sort of thing with Chad—‘s nothing for the fans to get so worked up over, you know?”

Okay, mostly he and Chad amp each other up until small countries explode, but still. Chris hadn’t yet met Chad. 

 

“Yeah, well, I think you’re okay,” Chris had growled, ruffling his hair. “Jenny wouldn’t have brought you out with us if you sucked balls.”

  
The point is they don't want to screw each other. He and Jensen. They don’t.

 

~*~

  
Chris and Steve haven’t been any help ever since they found out they were a whole subculture unto themselves, which means in the middle of perfectly normal conversations over the phone with them Jensen will stop, laugh, and say, “Oh, that reminds me—you'll never guess where you fucked Steve today. No. I shit you not, the moon. Astroglide just took on a whole ‘nother meaning. No, well, you were aliens, taking a break on your quest to rescue me from the evil Space Invader who kidnapped me for his love slave."

Jensen isn't laughing meanly. It boggles Jared's mind, smack dab in the middle of his kitchen looking for a beer that goes with Madden. It's just...it's weird. Two seconds ago he was admiring the way Jensen’s moving around gathering Jared’s favorite foods under one arm with his cell tucked between his head and shoulder, and now—

"So, you read about your two friends having alien buttsex often?" Jared asks the instant Jensen hangs up, suddenly caught wondering why the hell he’s crossed his arms.

  
"Tentacled alien buttsex," Jensen clarifies, totally missing the point. "You have to read it. These girls are amazing."

If Jensen was Chad, Jared would know at this point that last statement had something to do with wanting into these anonymous females’ pants, to benefit from their warped and kinky minds. But he's not. Jensen really sounds like he's thinking what he said; that they're amazing, end of story.

"Did we have tentacled alien buttsex?" Jared asks, suddenly and surprisingly annoyed—like if he had gay alien sex with his costar, he should fucking know about it.

Jensen arches an eyebrow before ducking into the fridge. "I just skim those parts." And he does, Jared knows he does, because waiting for phrases to jump out at them is where they get some of their best lines. Jensen's head reappears a second later, sucking on a Sam Adams, and Jared's stomach feels like he just ate one of those tentacles.

Jensen wipes his mouth with the back of his hand, eyes just a little bit guarded behind their smile. "From what I could tell, you seemed to enjoy it."

Jared's already in the living room (sans beer) before he's struck with the belated realization that they were playing a really weird game of gay chicken, and he just lost.  
 

~*~

  
Jensen doesn't seems to think reading stories about himself fucking his costar is weird, because, "It's like that old clichéd 'I'm just reading it for the articles,' line," he told Jared once, whacking him on the chest with a sheaf of printed pages, "Only, it's _true._ " He gets an honest to god kick out of it, and—as much as Jared wishes it was in his head—there’s no way not to notice a direct correlation between Jensen’s mood and his own. It’s that fucking scale thing, only they can pull each other up and down, too.

 

…His metaphors have always been for shit.

 

Plus, they—he and Jensen—they’re kind of busy. Like, every damn day. So sometimes the only things they have the time or energy to read happens to be the length of a standard fan fiction. Which…well, it wasn’t always the case, but it is now.

  
It makes Jared feel...twitchy, the feeling that he should be doing _something_ , but he doesn't know if he's supposed to put an end to it or let it go.   
 

It’s his fault, really. Well, and Chad’s. But pretty much everything is Chad’s fault.

  
~*~

"Alan Rickman totally wants to tap that."

 

He is still losing gay chicken. He has been losing gay chicken…all week.   
 

"The fact that you can't remember Hans Gruber's name," Jared says to cover up his genuine bafflement, "makes me seriously reconsider your man card."   
 

Every single movie they’ve watched, even _Die Hard,_ for fuck's sake, turns into an evening listening to Jensen rewrite the entire movie starring their epic gay love.

"Hey. Bruce Willis is a manly man, and he still almost cries like a girl picking glass out of his feet in the bathroom." Jensen prods him deliberately on the shoulder, like Jared should be able to see what's coming. "Dibs on being McClane!" 

 

“Why, because you regularly cry in bathrooms?” is what he’s supposed to say, but he can’t get the words out. The spot where Jensen poked him burns a little, like it might bruise.

"Screw this," he grumbles, shoving a thumb down on the channel button so he finally has somewhere else to look. "I will not let you ruin this for me, or the rest of—manly mankind,” he adds, kicking at Jensen’s knees where his legs are stretched across the couch.

Obviously, because the universe hates him, Jared's favorite childhood (okay, early teen) movie pops onto the screen, and Jared levels a glare at the side of Jensen's face, daring him to say a word.

 

It’s not really like he could, there’s no way—

Jensen takes a too-innocent swig from his beer, lips pursed tight in a smile around the bottle.

"You are shitting me!" Jared yells.

Jensen cough-spits his mouthful in a spray of droplets down his chin, over his jeans. Jared’s hand twitches.

"N-no," Jensen groans, scrubbing a hand over his grin before Jared can, "You were the overworked, candy-holic Pumpkin King, Harley and Sadie were your hell hounds, and Steve was Chris's Igor, pining from a-fugly." 

"Yeah, well you were a fucking rag doll!" Jared points out, voice several octaves higher than it should be. Jensen just laughs.

He really, really _sucks_ at this game.  
 

~*~

 

When things started to go south with Sandy…well, they went really south, in a painfully quiet-before-the-storm way, only the storm kept not coming and not coming until Jared felt like his ears were bleeding every time he picked up the phone. It didn’t really help that being around Jensen made it ten times worse.

 

He didn’t know why—it was the one thing Sandy never gave him non-existent shit about, spending time with Jensen instead of her—but he still felt it like a lead weight in the pit of his stomach. A lead weight with spikes, wrapped in barbed wire. It was probably worse because she didn’t not-mention it, but maybe not. He’d never been able to hide anything from Jensen, and being vulnerable like that just made him feel like the bandages were being ripped off.

 

Three weeks of hiding from Jensen at every opportunity (no small feat when you’re living together), and watching his entire future unravel on the screen of his Nokia hadn’t made it better, but he ignored the worst parts and told himself that was just because he wasn’t used to not being connected at the hip, that he didn’t have anything to take his mind off it.

 

It wasn’t his fault Chad had been sending him links to fanfiction for two years, but it was definitely his fault that he fell so low to click one.

 

‘ _Jensen walked towards Jared with such swagger in his hips that the tight leather standard Jedi britches strained to contain his arousal, shirt buttons no match for the power of the Force, especially not from one as skilled as Obi-Pada-Lecki.’_

 

He hadn’t laughed in such a long time that his babies heard him and tore (literally) up the stairs, Jensen scrambling on their heels to pound on the door, asking if he was okay. Something along the times of, “Fuck, Jay, open the _fucking_ door, I’ve _—"_

 

Jensen smacked him on the nose with his fist when Jared jerked open the door—an accident, but it stunned him stupid long enough for Jared to shake off another laugh and pin Jensen in a hug.

 

Hugging Jensen—chest to chest as tight as he could—made the ache go away, for as long as he was holding on.

 

“The hell?” Jensen mumbled, eyes so wide and concerned (and a little hurt) when Jared let go that he could’ve—

 

He could’ve shown Jensen what he was reading, and did. Even if it felt mostly like a distraction for how badly his hands were suddenly shaking.

  
~*~

Jared maybe gets a live journal account. And he maybe gets it to find better worse fic than Jensen, so he can catch a fucking break.

He's not very good at it.  
 

 _‘Jensen shuffled towards Jared, falling against him in an embrace—or what Jared thought was an embrace until Jensen’s hands started fumbling with the coffee maker on the counter behind him.’_

 

Jared keeps reading, waiting for one of them to mention Jared’s peg leg or Jensen’s night shift at the hospital.

 

 _‘“Come on, man,” Jared laughed, catching Jensen’s hands and pushing him back. “You seriously cannot get up this late and expect time for a coffee break_ and _a blow job.”’_

 

Aaaaany day now.

 

 _‘Jensen looked honestly torn about which one he wanted. Jared laughed.’_

 

 _And then proclaimed his evil plot to take over the world,_ he prompts, sighing impatiently as he clicks the down arrow.

 

 _‘“Coffee now,” Jensen mumbled against Jared’s freshly shaven jaw, “Blow job in your trailer after we finish the scene where you cry like a girl?”’_

 

…Uh.

 

 _‘“Is that before or after Dean angsts about hell?”_

  
Holy…

 

This…this is a story about him and Jensen.

 

No, like _really_ him and Jensen, where they aren't rock stars or veterinarians or college-roommates-sometimes-hookers, where they're just... They’re _them_. Fuck, they’re describing the way Jensen looks all sleep and caffeine deprived, the way Jared's _seen—sees—_ Jensen every single morning.

 

What. The fuck. Is this _legal?_

 

He’s kind of really creeped out for a second because—okay, irrationally, but still—his brain starts thinking _the fan girls are_ _watching them_.

 

But they aren’t (he checks—no cameras). And there’s more.

 

They’re going in detail about the look on Jared's face at a basketball game with Sandy, the weekend of Jensen's 30th birthday. They’re talking about Jensen's sweater vests and Jared's "Everything's Bigger in Texas," t-shirt, and the way they both look calmer in front of the cameras with their arms looped easily around each other than apart.

That twitchy feeling—like he’s just streamlined three cups of espresso—comes back so fast and hard it takes everything he has to keep from smashing his computer and taking the kids for a run, maybe a ten mile loop, just take the dogs and go and not think about Jensen at all. Except for leaving a note. Because Jensen will—

Not. Care. Because. It’s. Not… _real_.

"Jesus..." Jared rakes a hand through his hair, takes a breath.

 

And keeps reading, scrolling down every time he sees the tell-tale words, 'their lips met' and tuning back in for the post-coital...No, really, there's not a whole lot of words after the porn, most times. And Jared doesn't need to have his brain map out exactly what Jensen would look like fucked stupid. He _doesn't_.

 

Fuck, especially since it’s not even like some random character with Jensen’s name and some crazy-ass job like—where the hell are the rodeo clowns?

 

That night he doesn’t sleep much at all. The sixth time he snorts awake dreaming of Jensen curling up under the covers with him (sometimes wearing the glasses he doesn’t need anymore— _fucking lasic surgery, fucking_ Dark Angel _—_ ) it’s four in the morning, and he might as well turn the computer back on.

Sometimes the Padapuppy makes an appearance, but mostly it's just them being...well, as close to them as people who've never met them can guess, and sometimes the attention to detail is so close he catches himself thinking, _Jesus, did this really happen?_ like Jensen really has been making fuck-me eyes at random P.A.s behind his back.

 

He knows at that point he’s getting a little too emotionally invested, but he’s always been that way with reading, so thinking _Christ, Jensen, just_ tell _me_ , takes a couple seconds to sink in.

Jared goes still. "Tell me what?" he asks the computer, voice on the narrow edge of silent. It stays quiet, low hum of the monitor not so much calming as it’s making his nerves vibrate.

Because there isn't anything to tell. He would _know_. Jensen wouldn't even _have _ to say anything. Obviously. Nothing to get...worked up over. And definitely not disappointed about, Jesus Christ.

 

He needs to take a break so he does, shuts the computer off and runs with the dogs, comes into the kitchen with a nice sheen of sweat to find Jensen yawning around a cup of coffee in a way that would definitely be a precursor to sex if this was a fanfic.   
 

“Mm,” Jensen hums, voice sleep-rough as he slides off the breakfast bar stool. “Musky.”

 

Jared, still riding the endorphin high, shoots back easily, “Shut up, Pudgy Midway,” and smacks Jensen’s ass on his way to the fridge.

 

Jensen grunts in surprise and Jared laughs, and all is right in the world until Jensen says, “Your brains are no match for my tractorbeam.”

 

He can’t get his hand to stop tingling for hours.

 

~*~

 

Jared booked his flight to break up with Sandy the night he and Jensen discovered fanfiction. He hates that he has to hope there’s no correlation.

 

What really has no correlation (with any of this) is Danneel. Jensen was so excited every time he called home—well, called Jared, who was at home—while he was off filming Ten Inch Hero.

 

“It’s like—I dunno, if you and I had been friends for as long as we have but never got to work together.”

 

“You’d be gabbing on the phone with Chris talking about the color of my eyes in the sunlight?”

 

“Shut the fuck up,” Jensen laughed, “You know what I mean. I get to show off for her, man! I get to prove that I’m good at what I do for a living! It’s very Neanderthal.”

 

“So just like your face.”

 

“Yeah, well, you know what? Danneel likes my face just fine.”

 

“You’re not replacing me already, are you?” Jared said easy enough, even though Sadie’s head was feeling a little heavy on his chest. He felt kind of empty, too, like he hadn’t eaten all day (which wasn’t true). “Because, remember, your name is on the lease—that gives me at least a year of obligatory best friend status.”

 

There was a faint buzz of static like Jensen was sighing, but when he talked there was definitely a smile. “No, dude, no chance of that. Hey, I gotta run. I’ll be back in two weeks, don’t let Harley eat my shoes.”

 

Jared was half-way through a bowl of ramen before he started wondering if that sigh had sounded relieved.

 

~*~

  
It’s three weeks after Jared smacked Jensen on the ass—not that anything’s changed to make that a significant time mark—and his obsession with non-AU isn’t going away. In fact, it seems to be getting worse. Not only is he loosing gay chicken, he has to keep reminding himself they’re still _playing_.

 

Right now Jared's half-way through a fic about Jensen getting shot by a crazed fan during the writer's strike when his chest starts hurting so bad he has to sit back, rubbing at the ache and absently wondering if he's getting a cold before the next paragraph catches his eye and the pain sharpens with the thought of Jensen in a coma, silent and hurting and—

 

Jared lets his eyes close, makes his breathing slow down, reminding himself that Jensen is fine, just out running errands…Jesus Christ, he needs to stop reading fanfiction, because that reminds him of a fic he read this morning where Jensen bought him a huge bag of lime-apple gummy worms to apologize for some couple-y fight brought on by nothing more than being in close quarters.

He wants that.

 

 _What?_ a voice that sounds a lot like Jensen's snarks, his ears still ringing from shock, _Me nearly dying to save you? Or me waiting on you hand and foot?_

Shit, no. Jared feels it so sharp he literally shakes his head, like a rope yanking his jaw. He wants _this_. He scrolls down and jabs a finger at the screen, the part where Jensen wakes up and panics because Jared left the hospital room for just a second, and in real life Jared's heart starts hurting again at the way Jensen's looking at him on the page. He wants that. He wants to be that, for Jensen.   
 

…Oh.

  
Wow.

Jared sits back, ears burning.

Who saw this coming besides the fangirls? 

The door slams downstairs, making Jared jump so hard his knees dislodge the keyboard and send it skittering under the desk so that when he ducks to get it he bangs his head hard enough on the edge to see stars. Jensen's calling his name, thumping upstairs, seconds away from walking in a room with a computer monitor covered in that One Fucking Picture the fangirls won't let die, the one where Jared's laughing at something Jensen said and Jensen has his chin propped up with one hand, looking at him like—

"You reading porn about me?" 

The voice is definitely just outside his door, and Jared does the only thing he can think of half-stuffed under a desk. He unplugs _everything_.

"Dude." 

Jensen sounds a little weird, so Jared nearly pulls something twisting to see over his back end to Jensen's face. For a split second, Jensen looks like he's frowning at something on Jared's shorts (is he wearing the gag ones Chad got him saying 'Juicy?' He can't fucking remember) and then he catches sight of Jared's face and smiles, eyebrow inching up towards his hairline.

"You and the computer desk need a minute?" 

"The dogs knocked stuff loose," Jared says, almost before Jensen's finished, shaking the fist full of chords in what little room he has left.

"Uh huh..." Jensen sounds over the top skeptical, like when he doesn't really care and just wants to get a rise out of a person, but he's backing up—which doesn't quite compute. "Whatever. I'm making enchiladas, so wash your mitts and get ready to strip that monster chicken."

"That monster smoked chicken," Jared's supposed to shoot back, reminding Jensen that he'll be thanking him for weeks every time they have leftovers that Jared talked him into the 20lb-er. But Jensen's already in the kitchen by the time Jared gets his act together—in his defense, they weren’t planning on the enchiladas until tomorrow—and by then it's too late.

Fuck.   
 

 _Fuck._

  
~*~

 

Three weeks after he broke up with Sandy, Jensen dragged him to a low key get-together over at Tom’s. Jared was still a little raw, but the look on Jensen’s face when he realized the sheer number of people at this ‘low key’ event made him feel a little better. He even cracked a smile, which lasted just long enough for him to squeeze inside the house and get literally tackled against Tom’s living room wall.

 

Gasping breath back into his lungs, it took him a couple seconds before he could see anything but stars. And by then there was a strangely familiar arm looped around his neck, yanking him down.

 

“You don’t call, you don’t write!” Chad bellowed in his ear, methodically fucking up Jared’s hair, “Where’s the motherfucking love?”

 

Jared read a fanfiction once written from Chad’s point of view, and laughed so hard he pulled a stomach muscle and fell out of his chair. Chad responded to the forwarded link with several photoshopped pictures of him and Jensen cuddling while naked, which Jared deleted without opening.

 

Now, though, he was grinning helplessly on his own, couldn’t seem to stop, because he always forgets how much he misses Chad until he sees him again.

 

“What the hell are you doing in Canada?” Jared yelled back, arms just a little too tight around Chad’s smaller body.

 

“Jenny called me!” It was the most terrifying thing in the world, but Chris and Chad got on like wildfire (in the best and worst sense of the word). They were the only two in the semi-civilized world allowed use of that nickname—the only time Jared tried it out Jensen ripped him a new one and didn’t speak to him for the rest of the day.

 

He disentangled just long enough to shoot a glance back towards Jensen—where he was wrapping himself up in the arms of a definitely recognizable girl. “Said you were down in the dumps,” Chad added, watching Jared’s face, arm still wrapped around his head so Jared had no choice about pressing their temples together.

 

Jensen caught his eye over the brunette’s shoulder and flashed him a grin, one Jared couldn’t help returning even if it seemed to disappear kind of fast.

 

“Danneel’s here too?” he asked, bass of whatever music was on making his heart thump off-beat.

 

“Beer!” Chad hollered, right in his ear, and bent Jared nearly in half to frog-march him to the keg.

 

It never took long to get drunk at one of Tom’s parties. Once Jared caught himself staring at that mop of dark hair across the room, contemplating whether or not he should tell Tom about the time Tom got turned into a pregnant dog—well, once he started thinking _that_ , Jared figured he was definitely successful on the getting-drunk front.

 

Jensen kept appearing and disappearing in the crowd, sometimes with Danny, sometimes not, always turned toward Jared. Or that’s what it felt like. But he never came over, no matter how many times Jared nearly broke things trying to wave him their way.

 

“Jay, Jay…” Chad never acted more like his fic persona than when drunk, but the creepy part was, he hadn’t started acting that way since _after_ he found livejournal. No, seriously. Even Chad said so.

 

See, right now Chad was snickering, flat on his back, which was somehow sprawled across Jared’s front, and there might have been a bong floating around. Maybe literally.

 

Jared snickered back, prodding the space between Chad’s eyes.

 

“Jay,” Chad barked, right in his face, “Gotta lis’ me.” He paused, then smacked him upside the head.

 

“Ow!” They were on a couch, Jared realized in a moment of clarity before he waved it away. So they were maybe half-sitting up. Cool.

 

“I’m not squinty,” Chad told him, fist clenching in Jared’s hair. Something else clenched, but Jared couldn’t really place it.

 

“Never said you were!” he snapped instead, indignation flooding back.

 

“Yeah, well, sometimes you think it!” Chad slumped back, back of his head thumping against the armrest and his eyes—somber to the point of miserable—"When y’ gonna tell me?”

 

“Uh?” Jared said, highly intelligently.

 

“Not squinty,” Chad said again, squinting up at Jared’s face. “Srsly,” he added without a hint of vowels, “Know you. Known you since—ever. Y’get—fucked up, no girl. Seen it. Saw with Alexis, an’ that one chick after ‘lexis, and the one after that chick after ‘lexis…an’ now no Sandy, and no fucked up. Down, yes. Fucked, no. Right?”

 

“Uh.” This time it was a little dumber.

 

“Tell me.” Chad breathed alcohol fumes over Jared’s face, making him giggle and palm the back of Chad’s fuzzy head. The hair was just a little too short, little too blond… Jared blinked.

 

“Tell— What?” he asked, felt his eyes go pleading and hopeless because he didn’t have a clue.

 

Chad just sighed, patted Jared’s face. “’S okay. You’ll catch on, guess. Shots!”

 

When he woke up he was back home, tucked in his bed, a phone number scrawled in pink lipstick on his forehead, lip-marks down his cheeks. The number was Chad’s. He knows, because he called it.

 

“HA!” was all his best friend said, sounding like hell fucked over, “Knew it.” And hung up.

 

That was the day Jensen and Danneel had their first fight.

 

~*~

It was also a couple months ago, and Jared hasn’t been on a real date since. There hasn’t been any pressure to—which, Chad’s right, is a little weird for him. But he just hasn’t felt that _click_. Not even that, there’s no drive to find the click. Before this morning he thought maybe it was because there was no one that could ever compete with Sandy. But now…

 

Now Jared has smoked chicken grease up to his elbows, fingers numb from the temperature of the bird pulled from their fridge not ten minutes earlier. Jensen's at the counter, lining up the multitudes of cans he needs to make this work. _It's not really cooking if it comes from a can,_ Jensen says every time Jared calls him Emeril, but Jared still thinks it's pretty awesome.

He's paying more attention to Jensen's face that he is deboning—otherwise there would be a boner joke somewhere in the mess he's in—watching the way Jensen's mouth twitches as he reads the cans, the way he looks so calm and focused while he spins and pries them open. Black beans, diced green chilies, red enchilada sauce. He's got a system. Jared’s only now noticing he likes it maybe too much.

Because when Jensen glances over at him, he hasn't moved in two minutes and his hand is _inside_ the chicken. Where there is no meat.

 

 _What are you doing?_ Jensen’s face asks, the same time his quirked eyebrow quips, _Chicken molester._

Jared's up and shouldering Jensen to one side of the sink before he can say anything, using his elbow to flip the faucet on at the same time he mumbles, "My hands are cold." He doesn't think about how close they are, or how the space between their hips feels hotter than it should, or anything but getting the feeling back in his fingers. 

A heavy sort of resignation settles in his chest, suddenly. Padapuppy has it easy. He always gets his guy.

Not that…Jared necessarily wants to get ‘his guy,’ but, you know, if, theoretically, he did—Jensen, cowboy hats aside, doesn't like men. As far as he knows. Well, hell, as far as he knew (before this afternoon) Jared didn’t like men either. And it’s not really like he has a sudden urge to hit a gay bar, it's just... It's Jensen. It's kind of like, ‘Of course.’

It's kind of like, "You're fucked!" but presented really cheerfully.

Jared's working the soap along his fingers more thoroughly than he needs to, trying to coax the blood back into circulation, when Jensen coughs and nudges him with his shoulder. "Hey, hand me that?" 

He looks a little flushed, at least in the glance Jared lets himself sneak before snagging the tortillas out of the microwave and presenting them with a flourish and one of their lines. "My lord."

Jensen's supposed to say, "Scream it like you mean it!" but he just kind of ducks his head and gets to work pouring things in a pot.

Something’s not quite right, if Jensen fumbled a cue like that. Jared stops moving, trying to figure out—but Jensen was kind of in a funk when he came home. Everything seemed fine this morning, so…

 

So, of course, "Jesus, this chicken's freezing," is the only thing Jared can think to say.

"I left a note telling you to get it out at three," Jensen points out, lifting one shoulder in a shrug that doesn’t quite meet his eyes. "What—" He clears his throat, tucking the stirring spoon ladle-up into his back pocket. "What were you up to all day?"

Oh. Jared frowns a little at the spoon, something niggling at the back of his mind before he shakes it off. Jensen doesn’t look guilty, he looks…tense, yeah, but exhausted, too. Almost his oh-my-god-when-is-hiatus look but not exactly. It makes his stomach churn, reminds Jared of Jensen’s Danneel Face when things were going downhill.

 

Jared realizes then that a) he’s been staring too long, b) Jensen asked him a question, and c) he doesn’t really have a good answer.

 

“Just…I dunno, not much.” He shakes his hands dry, goes around the counter to his chicken, and instantly feels a little less like suffocating, but a little heavier, too. “Read some, checked email, watched TV…nothing big.”

 

There’s a lull, and then, “What are you reading these days?”

 

Okay, now it’s getting creepy. Jared almost rubs his hands down his thighs in his own nervous gesture before he remembers the grease and rests his wrists on the sides of the bowl. “Um, _Pride and Prejudice and Zombies_?” (He is, really. Just…not so frequently, as of late. And he has no idea why, but he’s been dropping hints that he’s easing off the fanfiction, simply because…he’s not reading the kind Jensen would approve of anymore.)

 

Here’s the part where Jensen’s supposed to laugh and rib him about his crazy need to make an effort at liking gifts, even though it was a present from Mackenzie and if ever there was a girl who could beat the shit out of Jared it’s Jensen’s sister—but it doesn’t matter, because it doesn’t happen.

 

“Hm. You liking it alright?”

 

In a last ditch effort Jared pastes on a lopsided smile and tries, “It’d be a lot better starring the infamous Jay-squared. You’d be Darcy, of course, with your I’m-shy-and-mysterious-ask-me-how thing going, and I’d be”—he strikes a pose, flexing like a pro-wrestler—"plucky Elizabeth Bennett, zombie killer extraordinaire. We’d team up and fight evil, like Chad.”

 

Jensen fumbles an open can right into the sink.

 

“Shit! Fucking—"

 

“Whoa.” Okay, enough. Jared’s not off the stool, but only because sudden movements might be bad. “Calm down, Jen, we’ve got—"

 

Jensen picks up the half empty can and slams it into the trashcan, half way across the kitchen, without taking a step.

 

“Nice shot,” Jared offers, not a hint of actual congratulations in his tone. “You wanna tell me what’s wrong?”

 

Jensen runs a knuckle over the line of his jaw, a sort of breathless laugh, almost _Dean_. But when Jensen finally meets his eyes there’s no trace of Winchester, just a quiet kind of—"Nothing.”

 

Jared doesn’t move, not even bothering with a shrug. Because one thing the fangirls have right? He knows Jensen.

 

(Which kind of sucks, because if he didn’t he might be able to convince himself that Jensen secretly liked men and just hadn’t let on.)

 

“I just—" Ding. Even though Jensen’s waving it away as he talks, which only means it’s even more important. “I ran into some fans at the grocery store. And—yeah, you know?”

 

Jared doesn’t know, because Jared wasn’t there. But he has this flash in his brain of Kripke telling the press that the deranged woman who’d shot Jensen wasn’t really a fan, she was just mentally unstable.

 

“You okay?” He bites his tongue but not fast enough, wants to smack himself the instant the words are out.

 

“What? No, I’m fine.” Jensen looks surprised, but honest, only slightly annoyed. “I just—" He snags a beer from the fridge, arms wide and back to casual. “They caught me off-guard, is all.”

 

Jared’s voice drops about three octaves, feigning horror. “You didn’t tell them you like reading fanfiction, did you?”

 

“ _No_.” Jensen looks properly scandalized, which—thank god. “They asked me about you, actually…mostly. And, you know, if I thought Genevieve was good enough for you.”

 

Jared blinks. A couple times. “Me and Genevieve?”

 

“Yeah!” Jensen’s trying just a little too hard, but Jared doesn’t know what he’s trying _for_. “I thought she had a boyfriend!”

 

“…I thought she was a lesbian.” They don’t really hang out with Gen that often, honestly. She’s the least sociable recurring actor they’ve ever had, not that they can tell that to the fans. They like to think the Supernatural cast is one big happy family, which is mostly true…just not with Genevieve.

 

Jensen laughs, but it’s weird. Jared sits back a little, trying to wrap his head around it, which is why his mouth blurts, “Did they ask you about Danneel?” without any sort of permission from his brain.

 

Jensen goes too still for a second before he turns around to fix Jared with a look. “Dude. We haven’t even told our agents that we’re over. They’re fan girls,” Jensen adds, rubbing at his eyes, “Not psychic.”

 

Jared feels an almost painful sort of burning in the tips of his ears, like really focused blushing, and something hot and lower than his chest, and he thinks, _Maybe not psychic, but still pretty damn perceptive._

 

“So, wait. Are you flipping over me and Gen? It’s—"

 

“Jesus, Jay, how the hell can you tell us apart?”

 

… _What?_ “Well, for starters, one of you has a penis,” he points out, hackles on the rise because What. The. Fuck.

 

Jensen deflates, and _there’s_ the guilt, wrapped up in his features and the set of his shoulders so thick it makes Jared’s stomach churn. “I’m sorry. Shit.” He’s got a new can of black beans in his hands, thumbnail tracing the label. “Sorry. It’s nothing. I haven’t— This thing with Danneel, I haven’t been sleeping too hot and—taking it out on you.” There’s an ‘of course’ in his voice before he curses again, turning back to the stove.

 

“Hey,” Jared says when he can trust himself not to sound like a pig-tailed Padapuppy. “You can always take shit out on me, man. It’s what I’m here for.”

 

His co-star makes a noise that’s sort of like a scoff, glancing back over his shoulder with a smile that’s all uncertain _Yeah, I know_ —like he wants to know, but doesn’t trust himself to, and that right there is Jensen in a jar.

 

“I’d tell you if I was dating anyone,” Jared adds, not entirely sure why and trying so hard not to fuck them up. “You know that, right? Hell, I—" Oh, shit. Here’s something he was hoping never to tell anyone, but he can’t make himself stop, can only try to make it sound as casual as he possibly can, “I called you after getting engaged before I called my parents.”

 

Jared can feel Jensen staring at him before he raises his eyes, reaches for a smile. “Seriously. I’d give you a hug if I didn’t have greasy chicken fingers.”

 

Jensen looks entirely too grateful for that.  
 

~*~

 

When Jensen and Danneel ended it was hard, fast, and brutal, bad because they’d been friends long enough to know every button to punch. Jared remembers a fleeting thought that if he and Jensen ever dated and broke up, it would be something like this, only worse.

 

And Jared got front row seats to the event.

 

Jensen tried his best to get her to fly up so they could do it in person, but that technique only worked on someone willing to get on a plane.

 

“No. Fuck you, Jensen Ackles, this relationship only ever happened on the phone, it’ll fucking well die on the phone!” Jensen didn’t have the volume turned up on his cell, she was just that loud.

 

Jared couldn’t get out of earshot unless jumping into oncoming traffic at 60 miles an hour out of a vehicle he was driving was a viable option, but honestly? He was considering it. They had been driving back from dinner when she called, and Jared was looking so hard for a shoulder to pull over onto that it felt like his eyes were bleeding.

 

“Danny—"

 

“Jesus, Jensen!” Now she sounded like she was falling apart, anger sliding into hurt. “You promised you’d _try_.”

 

“I did. God, Dan, I did.”

 

And that’s it. Jared cut across two lanes of traffic and turned illegally into an exit-only road leading to some high school that was closed for the day, literally fell out of his truck the instant his seatbelt jerked free.

 

He knew he was breathing much too shakily for the one not getting broken up with, but—fuck, Jensen’s _voice_.

 

He sat on the pavement for an hour, back against his door—because moving further away felt…wrong—so when Jensen leaned over the cab to open it all he managed was a little nudge before Jared’s weight pushed it shut again.

 

It took him a minute to stand, bones creaking from holding one position in the chilled air so long. The door creaked too when he opened it, and Jensen was…so small on his side of the truck.

 

Jared had never had doubts about whether to touch Jensen or not. He’d never thought Jensen might shove him away, before. He didn’t know why this time felt different.

 

“What,” Jensen croaked, wet eyes on the dashboard, painful smile tearing at his mouth, “I gotta be squinty for you to put out?”

 

It felt like the hug when Dean got back from hell, only a hell of a lot sadder. Dean would never hold onto anyone the way that Jensen did.

~*~

Tonight. Jared is going to read the porn.

 

If he doesn’t throw up first.

 

The enchiladas are amazing, though, so amazing that Jared can’t help making noise while they chow down in front of the TV (so, really, throwing up would be a shame). Jensen tucks himself on one corner of the couch and stays there, eating quietly with his eyes on the screen while Jared tries not to freak the fuck out and waste perfectly good smoked chicken.

 

There wasn’t really any time after his afternoon revelation to decide what the hell he’s going to do about it (or if there’s anything he _should_ do about it) and not even mind-blowing enchiladas are going to keep his mind off that. He wants to look at Jensen, not out of the corner of his eye, wants to catalogue the shape of limbs he’s never really looked at before, and he can’t. It makes Jared feel like there’s a stranger on his sofa, and it’s making his stomach churn.

 

He shouldn’t read the porn. It’s not worth it. He’s not going to torture himself like that, and he’s not going to read about his best friend naked and moaning and—What the fucking hell is going on in his pants? Jesus.

 

He needs his mind off it, _now_ , and there’s only really one thing that’s distracted him before.

 

“Okay, let’s hear it,” he says, just a little too loud with a sigh he hopes comes out resigned. Jensen twitches just a little bit in his peripheral vision, almost a flinch, but by the time Jared looks over he looks normal, kind of bored. “Go on,” he tells Jensen’s expectant eyebrows, “Rewrite _Braveheart_ , I dare you.”

 

Jensen snorts a little, and there’s a smear of enchilada sauce on the corner of his mouth that Jared doesn’t look at. “Dude, you can’t rewrite _Braveheart_. The Scots are homoerotic enough without putting us in kilts.”

 

Jared smiles and shrugs and stuffs enchilada in his mouth, because he doesn’t know how to answer. He’s not exactly sure what Jensen’s saying.

 

“Besides,” Jensen says after a minute, settling back on the couch like Jared can’t see the tension in his shoulders, “I’ve paid my kilt-wearing dues. Which means you’d be the one drawn and quartered.” He tips his beer in Jared’s direction without exactly meeting his eyes, and Jared realizes a little belatedly that he hasn’t met them since they started cooking.

 

Purposefully not thinking about Jensen’s issues—or Priestly, fucking _Ten Inch Hero_ —Jared swipes the remote with a heavily put upon sigh, flipping through their cable menu.

 

“Were we not watching that?” Jensen asks, haltingly, an edge of annoyance that Jared isn’t expecting. Jensen’s used to his TV A.D.D.—or he thought he was. He should be by now.

 

Making an effort to not frown, Jared shakes his head, keeps his face impassive. “You’ve ruined me for non-corruptible movies. _No Reservations_?”

 

For a second Jared’s not sure Jensen’s going to play. Then he sighs. “You’re the dashing overly-friendly cook, I’m the emotionally closed off top chef with a tragic past. Next.”

 

Jared grins, eyes on the cable menu as he flips through movie channels. “ _Princess Bride_.”

 

“Buttercup,” Jensen says instantly jabbing a thumb in his direction, “meet Dread Pirate Jensen, and my tragic past.”

 

“Bonus Prince Chad Michael Humperdink,” Jared throws in, adds, “ _Lilo & Stitch_?” before Jensen can fully appreciate his sheer genius.

 

Jensen’s jaw works a little, like he’s chewing something not quite pleasant. “You’re the alien.”

 

“Hey!”

 

Jensen keeps going, no inflection, like Jared hasn’t spoken. “And I’m the emotionally closed off brother-turned-single-parent—with a tragic past.”

 

“ _Dare Devil_.”

 

“Okay, now you aren’t even trying.”

 

“ _Bourne Identity_?”

 

“Hi, I’m Jason Bourne. With a tragic past I can’t even _remember_.”

 

Jared laughs, real for the first time in what feels like days. “You’ve really thought about this, huh?”

 

He doesn’t mean it—it’s just one of those things to say and not mean—but Jensen shoves off the sofa with his plate so fast that his fork hits the floor, voice tight and not looking back as he says, “No, I really fucking don’t.”

 

Jensen’s door is shut long before Jared’s mouth is, and then it takes him fifteen minutes to get the fork back from Harley.

 

~*~

 

If Jared was the Padapuppy, he’d have slid into Jensen’s room by now and curled up on the bed with him, and they’d talk about their feelings and braid each other’s hair, and then have hot sweaty porno sex including the words “bulbous,” “vein-y,” and “shaft.”

 

Jared’s not the fucking Padapuppy, and he doesn’t know what the hell he did wrong.

 

Is he acting differently? Jesus Christ, is he sounding like a twelve year old girl wondering if he’s acting differently?

 

Jared takes a breath and makes sure Jensen’s still in his room when he lets his head bang quietly against the wall, but it doesn’t really help anything. Besides, he’s pretty sure to do it right he’d have to go upstairs and bang it on his desk.

 

Not…a euphemism…for anything.

 

His blood’s just pumping a little harder because he’s frustrated, that’s all. Normal, everyday frustrated. It’s frustrating.

 

Jared nearly chokes swallowing on a groan.

 

After the food’s put away and the dogs have been let out and the living room is cleaner than it was when they moved in, Jared gives up and goes to Jensen’s door. He puts his hand on it, but can’t make himself knock. Not with half a pup tent telling him to grab Jensen and make him—tell him what’s wrong.

 

Jensen probably knows he’s there, anyway. Though he’s hopefully pretty oblivious about the hard-on.

 

“Hey,” he says, just loud enough to carry through the door, but then he doesn’t know what else to say. ‘ _Sorry, I didn’t mean to’—_ do what, exactly? And ‘ _It’s okay to think about—’_ is just worse. _Hey, so, it’s okay you don’t think about me like that,_ just sounds…well, it—it’s _true_ , but it— Fuck. “Um. Goodnight.”

 

There isn’t an answer, but he can hear Jensen stop moving around.

 

He wonders if Jensen’s found the enchilada sauce on his lips yet, thinks about shouting it through the door, and goes up to his room instead.

 

Fuck this, he’s reading the porn.

  
~*~

Settled into bed with his laptop, signing into livejournal wearing striped boxers and a white tee shirt with an ominous box of tissues by his hip, he’s still going to read the porn. Even if it’s taken him twenty minutes just to brush his teeth.

 

It takes another handful of minutes to retrain his eyes to not glaze over the instant they read anything rated higher than PG13, but…well, Jared kind of expected that. What he didn’t expect was to be so goddamn nervous about it. Jesus, his hands are shaking, and not just from the strain of maneuvering his dresser half in front of the door. (Paranoid? Yes. But he’s read the scenario for this fic before—he doubts it ends so happily in real life.)

 

He picks a random community, and it’s not his fault that it’s dedicated to Jensen. He’ll be there, too. Jared takes a shaky breath and closes his eyes, opens them, clicks tags and NC-17.

 

The first couple are WIPs (it took him forever to figure out what the hell that meant, but then again he thought ‘PWP’ meant ‘Pervy With Penis’ for a lot longer, so—shut the hell up) which doesn’t help him, but about half-way down the page he finds one called a one-shot, with ‘bonus!Impala.’ Laughing a little hysterically under his breath, he holds his breath, and taps his laptop keypad.

 

 _‘“Fuck, big boy, give it to me,” Jensen grunted, wrapping a fist as far around Jared as it would—’_

 

“Holy shit!” Jared hisses, nearly drops his laptop on the floor he flinches so hard. Automatic response. He just—he didn’t expect them to jump into it so fast. And he definitely, definitely didn’t realize they were both secretly cheap porn stars, or that he’s apparently been hiding a baseball bat in his pants all this time and never realized it.

 

 _Jesus_. Jared cringes in sympathy, suddenly fighting an urge to run downstairs and check that Jensen’s okay because—That can’t be _pleasant_.

 

For half an entire hour the only fics Jared can find don’t seem to know how to spell the word ‘come’ right, and everyone’s carrying around pocket-sized bottles of lube for no reason, and they call each other _baby_. What. The. Hell.

 

Forty-five minutes later, and not only is he as limp as a cooked sock, he kind of wants to go wash his computer’s Pentium Chip out with soap.

 

But he can’t go to _bed_ like this, all fucked in the head with those images and some warped version of Jensen’s voice whining, “ _Please, want your thick juicy cock in me,”_ because it sounds like someone got distracted describing a steak, and that’s just fucked up.  He’ll have nightmares. And he might never be able to look at Jensen without feeling sick, which—Kripke will kill him. The show will tank. End of the world as he knows it will ensue.

 

Taking a deep, shaky breath, he digs the heel of his hand against one eye to press the standard font away. He’ll read something quick, stupid, get his mind off this and go to bed. His favorite authors are bookmarked anyway—it’s one fast click and he’s skimming through fan fiction that won’t scar him for life.

 

He’s read some of this particular author’s stuff before and loved it, loved the way she deftly wielded the Padapuppy and Jensen, the way she poked fun at the ridiculous pairings she slipped them into like different Halloween costumes. (At least, he’s pretty sure she’s a she. He was always nervous about assuming.) In any case, most recently, she’s posted a list of other people’s fics she really enjoyed. And, well, this seems a little less likely to scar him for life, but what does he know?

 

Though honestly, at this point? How much worse could it be?

 

He clicks on the first one—something about Christmas—and instantly lets out a sigh of relief.

 

 _‘“Merry Christmas, douchebag!”_ _Jared whooped, crash-landing on the bed smelling of nutmeg and eggnog and wet canine.’_

 

Jared even laughs a little, because—well. Even though he and Chad are more likely to cuss at each other, he specifically remembers Jensen’s sleep-groggy expression last year when Sadie slipped into his room Christmas morning and dragged her tongue over his face just in time for Jared to see.

 

 _‘“’S that a candy cane in your pants or you just happy to see me?” Jensen mumbled around a pillow and a smile, turning in Jared’s arms to catch a peppermint flavored kiss, all without opening his eyes._

 

 _‘Jared smiled against his mouth and slid his hands down Jensen’s back. “In your sugarplum dreams.”_ ’

 

It’s the Padapuppy, Jared knows, but even though the words are corny it feels…it feels like it could maybe be the kind of shit he and Jensen really do give each other. It’s a little easier to breathe this way.

 

Until it quite suddenly isn’t.

 

 _‘Jensen licked into his mouth, tongue curling around tongue and over teeth and teasing, fucking, stroking—’_

 

Until Jared nearly chokes on his own tongue, he’s breathing too hard.

 

 _‘“Uhn, fuck, Jen,” Jared panted against the curve of Jensen’s collarbone, eyes squeezed shut so he wouldn’t be tempted to bite when Jensen slid two lube-slick fingertips behind his balls, rubbing at the still fucked out hole from last night—’_

 

Until Jared’s so stupidly, blindingly hard he doesn’t even realize it until after his hips shift up, unbidden, and the head of his cock peeking through his boxers brushes the underside of his computer and he has to think, _Oh god, I just violated a Gateway_ , and put the laptop on the bed before he drops it.  

 

It’s worse than he thought. He can—he can _taste_ Jensen’s skin like he’s spent all day licking it, hear him and _smell him_ and oh, fuck, he can picture it. He really, really can.

 

The next one on the list is about them interacting in their gym, Jensen’s point of view and that—Jared shudders—yeah, that does something to him, especially when ‘Jensen’ catches ‘Jared’ jerking off to the sight of him sleeping, sprawled across his bed in less than a towel. It leads into it, too, but he can hardly make his eyes focus long enough to read when he shoves a hand in his boxers—god, he feels like a teenager, hasn’t covered up like this since before he moved out—and pulls.

 

And when ‘Jensen’ starts to jerk off for _him_ — "Fuck,” he breathes, chest tight, fist tighter.

 

Again the fic mentions his huge cock, but—he looks down at his boxers and kicks them off with a strangled huff, gasps when his dick smacks up towards his belly button—it’s not like he’s had opportunity to _compare._ It looks normal, proportional to his hand, tip slick with precome until he works his thumb over the slit, works it down under the ridge of the head, and he wonders if Jensen’s cock would look like this, twitch like that, if maybe he’d show Jared or let him—

 

They suck at sex. In the fic. There’s fumbling and not-exactly-well-timed ejaculation and cursing and laughing and chewing each other out, and Jared feels warm all over, almost too good to be real because it’s still fucking hot, still catching noises in the back of his throat.

 

In the fic, after he’s fucked ‘Jensen’ so hard they both nearly pass out, ‘Jared’ asks him to move upstairs with him. Like, literally move into his room, and Jared feels like the one out on a limb all of a sudden, body drawn taut and sucking two fingers because his fic-self seemed to like it, and he does, he does, he wants—

 

He wants Jensen in the shower and on the kitchen counter after his run and he wants—he wants Jensen to fuck him and he wants to fuck Jensen until he can’t tell where one begins and the other—

 

Every time he clicks a new fic it’s like dragging himself back from the edge, pure torture because he can only use about three fingers without getting the laptop sticky, and he’s shaking by the third one, can barely keep his eyes open enough to read. And he _gets_ Jensen in the shower, in the kitchen and more, in the car, on the lot, in the Impala—

 

When he comes—and he does, fucking spectacularly, like most of his brains and probably a couple vital organs are splattered over his chest and he’s shaking so hard it’s difficult to breathe—when he comes, the image in his head isn’t anything more than the feel of Jensen pressed against his side, one arm flung over Jared’s ribs as he snores.

 

He can’t move for…god, feels like forever, long after his computer screensaver comes on, making the unlit room a hell of a lot darker. He’s completely boneless like his limbs have turned to wet sand, hasn’t ever gotten off this hard by himself. It’s a little bit frightening that he can’t right away remember coming this hard with another person involved, either.

 

His laptop goes to sleep before he can shut it off, so he just tuck-fumbles it under his bed with one hand so the flashing light won’t keep him awake. Not that there’s much chance of that, he’s so fucking wiped he barely has the energy to scrub off with a fist of tissues, but he still stays awake for another hour, blinking unseeingly at the ceiling.

 

Jared’s so seriously fucked.

 

~*~

 

When he wakes up he is literally humping the mattress, heated groan stretching into one much more humiliated as he pressed his face into the pillow, simultaneous attempting suicide and muttering apologies to his poor, unassuming bed. But, god, the sheets under his cock are already slick with come like he’s been hard for hours, and he can still feel the press of Jensen’s phantom fingertips in the cut of his hips. Curses turning to whimpers, Jared barely manages to wrap a hand around himself before he comes so hard he feels like he’s shaking apart.

 

He’s pretty sure he read somewhere that most people have sex dreams about people they’d never actually sleep with. Like their bosses. Or their siblings. Or their costars they’re actually kind of maybe head over heels for.

 

Because he’s not going to sleep with Jensen, and he really needs his dick to get the memo.

 

“Fuck. My life,” he grunts out for the first time since he’s read that phrase, words sticking in his throat and caught by the pillow before he shoves himself literally out of bed.

 

Jared takes an extra long time showering which means skipping his run, but he can’t go downstairs smelling like—like he does. He uses the freshest bar of soap he owns, then flinches hard enough to drop it when he realizes a) he was rubbing it over his dick, b) even though he feels like he got run over by a fairly pleasant truck, Jared Jr.’s a fucking traitor and a sucker for punishment, and c) the soap was a gift from Jensen, chucked at his head after their last grocery run with a jibe like, “I am not fond of your natural odors.”

 

This can not end well.

~*~

The last time they had a fight, it was because Jared saved Jensen a piece of apple strudel. It went something like this:

 

“Jared,” Jensen said, voice so low and even as he turned from their refrigerator with the saran-wrapped blue plate in his hand. “What is this?”

 

“…Apple strudel?” Jared hazarded a guess, preoccupied with the crossword Harley was slobbering on. He really didn’t see Jensen coming until the plate was shoved directly in front of his face. He flicked his gaze up, eyebrows lifting at Jensen over the perfectly golden crust of the 4x4 square.

 

“Where,” Jensen growled through his teeth, “is the rest of it?”

 

So it may have originally been part of a 9x13 pan—that had been fucking orgasmic, by the way—and, as it turned out, had been shipped all the way from the oven of one Mrs. Donna Ackles, sent overnight express, for no other reason than bribing her son home for Thanksgiving.

 

The fight, while explosive at the time, hadn’t lasted more than twenty four hours. Not after Jared spent a good hour catching up with Jensen’s mom and liberally applying the words ‘heavenly goodness’ and ‘irresistibly delicious,’ until she let the recipe slip out of her coyly buttered fingertips. He lost a couple more hours sleep getting up extra early to bake it, but when Jensen stumbled downstairs half-dressed with his glasses on crooked, following his nose to the source, well. He got forgiven simply because Jensen was too stunned that Jared had wrangled a family recipe out of his mom.

 

It felt a little girly when he thought about it later, baking as an apology, but he definitely didn’t feel anything feminine when Jensen gave him shit for mixing up baking powder and baking soda, insisted the batch was ruined, and shoved a handful of apple mush down the back of Jared’s shirt before settling down with a spoon to watch the show.

 

This is nothing like that fight.

 

Not that either one of them is admitting to having a fight.

 

“Hey,” Jared blurts the moment Jensen comes downstairs, prepared with two cups of coffee and a sliced apple—the closest to strudel Jared can do in two minutes—and then his brain stutters a second, because Jensen’s so put together it kind of hurts to look at. His hair is even styled, and that means he’s been awake for a couple hours at least. “I, um. Apple?”

 

“I already ate.” Jensen doesn’t even look at the coffee when he flashes a smile that’s supposed to be apologetic, just starts grabbing his coat and fishing for his keys in the pockets.

 

Jared quickly smoothes out his frown, coughing to get Jensen’s attention—something he’s never actually had to ask for before. “Sorry about last night.” His voice comes out just a little too loud, and he can feel his heartbeat lurch in his chest when Jensen barely glances back at him. “I know everything with Danneel is…yeah,” he finishes lamely, heat of the coffee stinging his palms through the mug. “I was just— You’ve been kinda down lately. I know you don’t really—”

 

“Yeah, okay, Jared, it’s fine,” Jensen says, flashing a smile that doesn’t go anywhere near his eyes. “Move your ass, we’re gonna be late.”

 

“No, we aren’t,” Jared starts to say, trying to laugh, but of course that’s the precise moment Cliff starts honking in their driveway, and _holy shit_ it’s a good half hour later than Jared thought it was.

 

He’s so busy scrambling to get his things—snatching his cell from where he’d accidentally left it on the couch, wallet from his nightstand—that they’re half-way to the lot and he’s almost finished reading a slew of drunken texts from Chad (most memorably, _< Dude, we have the same cock size. Best friends 4 life!>) _before he realizes Jensen still hasn’t once looked him in the eye.

 

In fact, he’s just kind of sitting there, tired eyes half-lidded and dull. Cliff keeps shooting Jared looks in the rearview mirror like, _What the hell?_ _Did you do this?_ and Jared doesn’t know.

 

~*~

 

The first time he met Jensen Ackles, he was so nervous he was sure any minute he was going to turn to Kripke and throw up at his feet. Not nervous about meeting Jensen specifically—his agent had said a name, but it hadn’t hardly registered over “They want you for the callback,” ringing through his ears—but he was so fucking sure it was all going to hell when he walked in that door he was half-way to blowing it already.

 

Ever since his split from Alexis—and it’d been bad, alright? Juvenile, but bad—he’d been fighting to get away from Gilmore Girls and Dean Forester, and failed attempt after failed attempt (Young MacGyver, _cough_ ) kept telling him that he wasn’t ever going to be better than infomercials and failed pilots.

 

He was so stunned at seeing the person rational viewers at home were supposed to believe he was related to, he kind of…forgot all that. And he kept forgetting it, all during the read through and the warm handshake goodbye and the honestly heartfelt promises to meet up later for drinks even if they didn’t make it, and he remembers thinking, _Are you kidding? Have you even_ seen _yourself?_ but not, _Oh my god, catnip spokesman,_ until well after he stumbled on home.

 

Jared’s pretty sure Jensen saved his career just by smiling at him when Kripke said, “Ackles, Padalecki. If things go as good as I’m thinking they will, better get used to each other’s pocket lint.”

 

No one knew what the hell Kripke was saying, but Jared had to sit up straighter than he had in months to laugh the way he wanted, just to match Jensen’s.

 

~*~

 

His last nerve is shot by the time they break for lunch, and not just because he can’t stop thinking about a fic he read where ‘he’ got ‘Jensen’ to wear a butt plug all day on set and it is _fucking with his mind_.

 

Partly because he’s been walking a fine line between aroused and sick to his stomach since he woke up.

 

Mostly because Jensen’s being about as cheerful as a bag of drowned puppies. No, it’s not even that he’s acting miserable, it’s like he’s not there. And it’s not enough for most anyone else to notice, which makes Jared feel like a ten foot tall hurdle’s been shoved against his stomach.

 

Metaphors still shit? Check.

 

On top of all that, it’s been a very physical day for Sam, _and_ he’s split from Dean while fighting off a horde of this week’s monster for at least half a day. Punches, falls, wall-flings, falls, high kicks, low kicks, and falling some more, exhausting but not enough to really warrant heavy stunt double use. Not even lines to take his mind off how much he wants—

 

It doesn’t really matter what he wants, because he can’t find Jensen and ends up eating—well, chewing, because he can’t really taste much of anything so it doesn’t count—flat on his back on the grassy lot they have on hand for hand-to-hand-combat-in-graveyard scenes. Thinking about nothing. Feeling a little bit stupid. And guilty. And tired.

 

“Jared.”

 

He snorts awake the instant Jensen’s boot collides with his, drowsily but automatically bending his knees up to give his costar a place to sit. The first time they did it, it was part of a joke—Jensen ordering him to fetch a chair, and Jared flopping down to make one. He’s not sure when it turned into something they think is normal. Or not normal, considering Jensen isn’t taking a seat.

 

“Hey.” He blinks and smiles anyway, because in this bleary not-awake state it still feels okay between them. “Looked for you.” One hand fumbles for his take out box and holds it blindly over his head.

 

Jensen chuckles and it feels _good_ , even if it’s quiet, because Jensen is moving to straddle his knees and the weight of him pressing Jared’s hips against the ground feels solid and right. “Jesus, Jay, you steal every cookie at the craft table?”

 

“Do you think the Padapuppy’s more fun than me?”

 

“Whoa,” Jensen says, sounding as surprised as Jared feels. “Where did that come from?”

 

Jared’s laugh sounds a little off, but he’s scrubbing a hand over his face so maybe Jensen won’t notice. “Sorry. Weird dream.”

 

“Yeah?” Jensen doesn’t sound like he’s sure he wants to know.

 

“Yeah.” He reaches up and lets Jensen haul him to his feet, swallowing a gasp when tired muscles pull and he ends up almost in Jensen’s face. At that point, it’s pretty much make something up or kiss his costar, and yeah, he’s the worst kind of coward, _and_ stupid, because the first thing that pops in his head is, “I was the cookie monster, you were the grouch, and one day when our paths crossed—"

 

“Oh god, man, shut up,” Jensen groans but he’s laughing, too, loud and relieved, almost like he isn’t sure he’s doing it right. “You really need to lay off the fanfiction.”

 

Jared pinches the sleep out of his eyes, trying not to sigh too hard. “You have no idea.”

 

“Moron,” Jensen grumbles affectionately after a minute, talking around a chocolate chip cookie on their way back to set, but Jared’s almost positive he hears him mutter, “Bert and Ernie,” before getting in the Impala.

 

He’s not really sure how things got right again so fast. He’s not too sure he cares.

 

~*~

 

For six hours one day in the summer of 2005 in the middle of Africa, Jared knew he was dead.

 

They were filming Flight of the Phoenix, which was such a clusterfuck that Jared felt lucky to be killed off early on, just to get the hell away from that set. The director was an asshole who blamed the actors for his mistakes, screamed at P.A.’s for everything else, and kept making loud obnoxious jokes about casting couches every time Jared was forced within earshot. Hugh Laurie was the only guy Jared could half-way stand (the other guys made Chad look like a posterboy for sophistication and maturity) but they didn’t have much in common. He didn’t have one fucking bar of cell service in the desert, he missed Sandy, and even after only filming the pilot episode—waiting to hear back from executives—he kept glimpsing Jensen out of the corner of his eye, always a little stunned and depressed when he wasn’t really there.

 

Two days before he was set to leave, everything crashed and burned.

 

The air was boiling off the road, caught in a dust storm blowing grit into his hair and eyes even with the air conditioning on and the vents slammed shut. He felt like saran wrap in an oven, already stretched thin, and the fucking director palming his ass that morning made everything in him feel like it was covered in slime. He was sick and homesick and lonely, and the next thing he knew he was in the ditch.

 

There was no place in between.

 

Everything was so quiet. The wind was gentler now, softly blowing through the shattered glass of the windshield across his skin. He was just so—warm. And still. His head was empty of the near-constant nagging voices pushing him to work harder, try harder, please everyone. He was just… He was okay.

 

Which meant he had to be dead.

 

Even touchingthings—like the handle of the car when he slid out—felt different, covered in a fine layer of dust that turned his hands grey. Or maybe they were already grey, now that he was a ghost. How very fitting for a lead of _Supernatural_ to wind up dead before the show even started.

 

Oh shit, Jensen.

 

Worry started leaking in the empty places in his head. Sandy and Chad—and Christ, his momma, she was going to kill him when she found out he was dead—were all on his emergency contact list; Who was going to tell his costar? Kripke? Fuck, _no,_ Jensen deserved better. Even after just one episode with the way they’d laughed and joked and fucking _clicked_ like that, Jared knew Jensen wouldn’t take his death…in _stride._

 

They’d just barely gotten to know each other. It felt like discovering a new favorite movie and only getting to watch the first five minutes.

 

An elderly couple on their way back from church found him with his head down, three miles from his car, walking to L.A. He didn’t realize he was still amongst the living until they asked him if he needed a ride.

 

When he got out of that hellhole the first news he heard was that they’d been picked up, on a day-old message Jensen had left on Jared’s next-to-worthless phone. It made adding Jensen to his emergency contacts list a lot less embarrassing than if they’d gotten canceled.  

 

~*~

 

Jared's gotten pretty good at reading Jensen’s silences, and he’s not exactly sure when that happened but he’s got another pretty good idea it was around the time he got the flu for a week right into hiatus—too sick to get on a plane, so stuck in Vancouver—and Jensen flew back from his Texas visit five days early to “make sure you don’t choke on your own vomit in your sleep. You’re kind of stupid that way.”

 

Anyway. The top five are the I’m-secretly-judging-you-while-you-make-an-ass-of-yourself, the pissed-off-and-can’t-understand-why-you’re-still-talking, the I’m-exhausted-and-my-brain-don’t-work-no-more, the Hi!-I’m-at-a-con-and-don’t-know-what-to-say-to-fans, and Jared’s favorite, I’m-okay-just-being-quiet. When that last one creeps in, that’s when Jared can relax into Jensen’s shoulder on the ride home—it only happens on the ride home, whether home is Texas or L.A. or Vancouver—and just breathe. Most of the other silences Jared can fill long enough for Jensen to break them and laugh.

 

This silence… It’s everything Jared can do to _keep_ breathing.

 

They’ve spent quite a bit of time together in the back seat of Cliff’s many non-descript vehicles, and for whatever reason, Jared’s never noticed the space between his seat and Jensen’s before. Usually it gets filled up with one of their bags, Jared’s legs, Jensen’s hips if he’s tired enough to crash sideways into Jared’s shoulder. Now it’s just there, like the car stretched half a foot in the middle when no one was looking.

 

Jensen’s not so much flattening himself against the door as he is completely closed off, eyes staring blankly out the window his elbow’s resting against, face so completely expressionless that Jared can only risk glimpses of it at a time because everything else about Jensen screams a quiet sort of tension he’s only seen in Dean.

 

He thought they were okay. They’d been okay the rest of filming—a little quieter than normal, but their guest director was working them pretty hard between takes, so…

 

Cliff is giving him looks again, like Jared’s momma when she knows he’s hiding something that’ll get him grounded. He’d start giving some back if he knew there was a chance in hell Jensen wouldn’t catch him.

 

By the time they reach the house Jared is ready to move past scared into pissed the fuck off. As far as Jensen knows—as far as he knows Jensen knows—Jared hasn’t _done_ anything. He’d stolen every cookie at the craft table for Christ’s sake, and made half-assed apple strudel for breakfast that he didn’t get to eat, and there’s no way he’s done anything to deserve this bi-polar brood-fest Jensen has going on.

 

“Okay,” he announces the instant he slides the door shut, even though he can hear Sadie and Harley scratching at the back door trying to get in, “what—"

 

“So…”

 

Jared shuts up, like Jensen slammed a hand over his mouth instead of scratching awkwardly at the back of his neck.

 

“I, uh. I think maybe we should talk.”

 

Holy shit. Jensen knows. Jensen _knows._

 

“Um,” Jared says, which is better than what he’s thinking: _Oh god, oh GOD._

 

“So, uh…” Jensen laughs, sort of, but it sounds like he’s shaking apart and _fuck._ If Jared did that to him by reading fanfiction then— _Jesus Christ_. “You wanna sit down?”

 

“Not really,” Jared chokes out, mostly because he’s not too sure he can unlock his knees.

 

And fuck if that doesn’t have Jensen’s eyes—sharp and scrutinizing and hurt—snap to him like they haven’t all day. “You sound—" He can see how much Jensen has to work to swallow. “You look like you might already know the topic.”

 

“Kind of. Maybe?” Because he’s not _stupid_. He’s not the Padapuppy and he’s not about to admit anything until he knows there’s not a chance in hell of getting out of it.

 

Except that only seems to make it worse. “Jesus, Jared, you could have a fucking heart about it!”

 

Jensen’s half pleading and half pissed off, and Jared’s mouth opens a couple times before he can make words come out. He didn’t have any right to read about Jensen like that, even a fictional Jensen, not without—not like some fangirl who’ll never know what he’s really like when he wakes up in the morning, or how he is between takes on a sex scene, jittery and quick to blush and still counting on Jared to calm him down... “I’m so sorry,” he says and means it. Means it so much he hurts with it.

 

But Jensen just looks like he’s been slapped. From someone who thought he deserved it, but— And then it’s gone, closed up and shut off except—except for _Jesus Christ_ Jensen looks like he’s about to fucking _cry._

 

“Hey it doesn’t have to mean anything,” Jensen says in a rush, so casual and waving it away like Jared doesn’t know what that means. “No worries. Uh, just—remember to take your phone upstairs, beeping all night, kept me up. See you—yeah.”

 

“What?” Jared says, confused to the point of feeling painfully stupid, but Jensen’s door’s already shut.

 

~*~

 

The day they finally moved all their shit into the house, just half an hour before Jared left to get the kids from day care to thoroughly trash the place—or to give it a ‘more lived-in feel’ as he liked to call it—Jensen beckoned him over, half leaning out of his doorway.

 

“Hey,” he’d said, voice hushed, eyes wide, and not even reaching the halfway mark for serious. “I know you have, well, let’s call them personal boundary issues, but if this is going to work, I’m gonna need a good twenty foot radius of Padalecki free zone, okay? And this here? Yeah? Imagine a giant geek bubble that protects me from your giant ass cooties, alrighty? Yeah? You got that, big guy?”

 

Jared had been ‘mmhm-ing’ and ‘uh-huh-ing’ along, not even bothering to fight the growing smile on his face until he was sure Jensen was done.

 

They’d scraped the “brand fucking new hardwood floor, you delinquent!” when they careened into Jensen’s bed hard enough to shove it a three good feet to the left, and when Jensen had stopped squawking long enough about that to loose at wrestling, they’d kind of flopped back on the floor to catch their breath.

 

“I think this’ll work out okay,” Jared said, thinking the only thing this picture was missing were his babies. _And Sandy_ , he added quickly, _but mostly, yeah, this._

 

“Oh good,” Jensen answered, not even glancing over when he flopped his hand against Jared’s stomach. “Glad to see you’ve thought this through.”

 

For the most part, Jared hasn’t been in Jensen’s room since. He’s known Jensen long enough to realize when he’s double bluffing, if that’s the right term. Jensen really does like his space—or even just knowing that he _has_ space, if he needs it—and Jared sprawls over the rest of the house; he doesn’t really need Jensen’s room.

 

So it’s like this giant fucking roadblock when Jensen shuts his door.

 

Except it shouldn’t be, and Jared’s knees almost do give out when he finally works his brain around that one and all but trips and falls against it. He catches himself (thank god) against the doorframe, but it’s close enough that if Jensen had a sudden whim to yank the door open for round two it would look really bad, looming like this.

 

So Jared takes a breath and turns the knob.

 

It’s definitely not what Jensen was expecting—he’s caught with his eyes wide, hands crossed half-way through pulling his shirt off—and honestly, Jared’s kind of thrown by it too (or, you know, the part where _Jensen’s shirt is half off_ ), so he stays planted exactly where he is, eyes fixed on Jensen’s and the traitorous knob-turning hand raised in a lame little wave.

 

“Hey,” he offers, just a lamely.

 

“Jared?” It’s a sharp bark of a word, a _what the hell?_ and _get out_ rolled into one, but at least it’s still a question.

 

“So I really hate talking to you through a door.” His words come out a little fast, kind of shaking near the end because he’s still very much the one in the wrong here, and he might be fucking things up even worse.

 

“I’m really sorry for you,” Jensen deadpans, and he still hasn’t lowered his hands like any second now Jared will see the light and leave.

 

“I am _so sorry_ ,” Jared says like he hasn’t spoken, because if he actually reads the body language he really will turn tail and run. “God, Jen, I wasn’t thinking. I’m _so_ sorry. And you were right, okay? It doesn’t have to mean anything. Hell, it hasn’t changed anything yet, right? Right, so I’ll just— _ow_!—I’ll stop, okay? And, I dunno, maybe it’ll go away, maybe, and if it doesn’t I’ll—I’ll fake it, I don’t know, I’m an actor, right? I’ve been faking it for a while, now, and yeah that sounded wrong but you didn’t notice, did you? I mean you must’ve because…obviously you found out, and did I mention I’m sorry?”

 

Jensen is looking at him like he’s lost his mind. Jared’s rubbing his knuckles where he cracked them against the doorframe he was gesturing so emphatically, and Jensen is looking at him like he’s lost his mind.

 

“Jensen?” he asks, a little hurt, a little defensive, and a lot fucking terrified that everything he ever cared about went up in a flaming bag of dog shit.

 

Something tugs at the corner of Jensen’s mouth, and like a loose string being pulled a good fistful of the tension on Jensen’s face unravels. Without all that he just looks…drained, kind of lost but in a way that could be good, maybe. “Dog shit?”

 

“Shut up,” Jared orders, but it’s kind of just as soundless, and anyway, he’s read a fic where they made out after a conversation about _zit juice_ —dog shit totally wins. Even if they don’t make out. (…okay, maybe zit juice wins. He just really wishes he’d ever had a chance at kissing Jensen.)

 

Finally Jensen’s hands drop, but they just kind of hang there, useless and dejected, fingertips brushing the soft, worn sleep pants he must’ve slipped into before Jared won the battle with the door.

 

“Look, Jared,” he says, voice just as soft and worn, “You don’t have to worry about it.”

 

“I’m pretty sure I do,” Jared blurts before he can stop himself, but the last thing he expects is for Jensen to _flinch_ so he quickly adds—

 

“I’m not going to molest you in my sleep!”

 

They blink a couple times at each other, not quite as in sync as their previous statement.

 

“…Good to know?” Jared chokes out a little haltingly, then, “ _Wait_ , you—"

 

The next thing he knows Jensen has a fist clenched in his t-shirt and button-down and he’s dragging him forward about three inches towards his face and Jared fucking _panics_ and thinks _head-butt_ only—only that’s not how you head-butt someone, with your lips.

 

That’s kind of how you _kiss someone_ , in fact.

 

He feels like he’s been shoved back in time to Africa, his head completely empty and his body flooded with warmth. Because Jesus Christ Jensen Ackles is Kissing Him.

 

It’s nearly over by the time Jared’s brain leaps on board, and then he’s grabbing Jensen’s head to keep him there, gasping against Jensen’s warm, dry mouth because his hands fit perfectly, right there, like his wallet sliding into the back pocket of his favorite worn out jeans.

 

He can’t help grinning when other things start sliding into place, until the smile’s too wide to keep kissing without feeling ridiculous, but something lurches in his chest to make him grin for a whole nother reason when Jensen pulls back, and he can feel that jittery tension running through Jensen’s skin under his hands.

 

It’s kind of ‘of course,’ and it’s kind of ‘you’re fucked,’ but it’s always been Jensen. He’s maybe always been that for Jensen.

 

“You’ve been reading the fan fiction,” he drawls around his grin, and maybe his eyebrows wiggle but his heart’s still pounding like it wants to get out, and he wouldn’t—couldn’t—stop touching Jensen if you paid him.

 

“What?” Jensen says like he’s maybe knocked something loose with that kiss, which—okay, entirely possible. “Yeeeeah. Started about the same time you did, remember?”

 

“No,” Jared corrects, because yeah, he apparently channels the Padapuppy when he’s wrapped up in someone (Jensen) like this, “the non-AU. The ones where it’s just you and me, and we fuck like rabbits and live happily ever after, because we’re attached at the hip. Because we’ve been living in each other’s pockets.”

 

And it is extremely corny, but Jared just slid his hand in Jensen’s back pocket, and Jensen’s mouth fell open.

 

“You were dropped on your head as a baby,” Jensen decides, but he’s not exactly objecting to Jared’s hand on his ass. “Seriously. That phrase is really fucking common.”

 

“Yeah, in fanfiction about _us_ ,” Jared agrees. “Really fucking common. I’d never heard of it before.”

 

“That’s because you lived a very sheltered life as a cloistered nun.” Which is not true, because Jared’s hand probably wouldn’t be doing what it is if that were the case. But it definitely gets him distracted enough that he totally doesn’t see Jensen’s pinch coming until he’s already wrestled free.

 

“Ow!” Now Jared's rubbing his own ass, and that's not nearly as fun. "What happened to the tentacled alien buttsex?" 

 

“This aint a fanfic, and I aint that easy,” Jensen calls over his shoulder, but he’s a nice shade of red as he heads out the door. “You want enchiladas again, or take out?”

 

This would feel a little too… _something_ if he hadn’t caught the faint tremor racing through Jensen’s voice, or if he didn’t feel himself like he’d won ten kinds of lottery on Christmas Eve and his birthday and honestly he’s having trouble wrapping his mind around it.

 

“Tai food?” he asks a little quieter, following Jensen into their kitchen and trying to squelch the feeling that maybe he is one big puppy because letting Jensen out of his sight right now feels…stupid. He takes an awkward seat at his old stool, putting the breakfast bar between them as Jensen fishes out a menu.

 

“Hm. You know what’s left now, right?” Jensen’s eyes flick up to his, crinkled and the corners and his breath still coming a little too fast, and Jared’s…back in Africa.

 

“What?” he asks, shaking himself off and trying to think, because he’s pretty sure they’ve tried everything at Mei Kong’s.

 

Jensen spreads his hands and grins. “ _Wincest._ ”

  
The End


End file.
